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Archive for the ‘Cities’ Category

Amon Amarth (Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, NJ, August 25, 2023) [GHOST]

Posted in Amon Amarth, BB&T Pavillion, Camden, NJ, Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Ghost, Ghost B.C. on August 25, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 25, 2023] Amon Amarth

I saw Amon Amarth open for Slayer back in 2019.  At that time I didn’t know them, but I really enjoyed their show–they were melodic and the singer was kind of growly, but he was understandable, and that makes a big difference.

I didn’t realize it had been so long since I had seen them and I kind of expected the same basic show.  But since 2019, they have put out a new album (and have a brand new single out as well).

So while they did play six of the same songs as last time, the order was different and their stage show was HUGE!

Last time they had a ship on stage that they climbed all over.  This time, there was a giant mask on stage and two massive statues of warriors on either side of the stage.

The band sounded huge.  I have now seen them twice in the same venue and would like to see them with a better sound system. (more…)

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Together Pangea / Thick / Reckling (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, August 24, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Reckling, Thick, Together Pangea, Underground Arts on August 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: August 24, 2023] Together Pangea / Thick / Reckling

I have wanted to see Thick for about five years now.  It seems whenever they play a show I can’t get to it for one reason or another.  This show was announced and I thought they were headlining.  But they are not.

Together Pangea is a band whose name I like a lot.  But I do not like their music.  It’s not that different from bands that I do like, it just didn’t do anything for me. So I decided I didn’t want to go to this show.

Thick is a fun rocking band from New York.  As I’ve said every time I keep missing them, I hope they come back soon.

I’d never heard of Reckling.  They are a pretty standard fast, catchy punk band.  Fun stuff, but not especially memorable.

 

 

 

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Paradox Museum (American Dream Mall, East Rutherford, NJ, August 24, 2023)

Posted in American Dream Mall, East Rutherford, NJ, Paradox Museum on August 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 24, 2023] Paradox Museum

I had gotten an ad on Instagram for something called Otherworld.  I bought tickets ahead of time and we had a blast when it opened.

Naturally I’d get an ad for the Paradox Museum as well.  There were photos of the weirdness inside and I thought it would be fun to check out as well.

Like Otherworld, the Paradox Museum is a series of rooms  that you walk through and you have your mind blown.  Unlike Otherworld, everything in Paradox is familiar.  There’s no weird rooms or art or crazy things to explore, exactly.

Each room deals with a visual paradox.  And the rooms are designed for you to physically see (and more often take pictures of) things that kind of blow your mind.

So it was the left brain side of Otherworld’s right brain. (more…)

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Parliament-Funkadelic featuring George Clinton (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, August 19, 2023)

Posted in Blue Eye Extinction, Fishbone, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Montclair, NJ, Parliament, Wellmont Theater on August 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 19, 2023] Parliament-Funkadelic featuring George Clinton

I’ve had Parliament’s Greatest Hits since like 1990.  I have a couple Funkadelic albums.  I am in no way a huge fan, but I’ve always liked them and I’ve always thought that George Clinton was a pretty great guy.  I realize 100% that the P-Funk heyday was literally decades ago.  And of course I knew that any P-Funk concert in 2023 was going to be an imitation of what the band(s) got up to back in the day.

But since George was going to be there and his name was on the marquee, I assumed that this show would be a 21st century update to the classic P-Funk show.  And with the technology (and costumery) available, it seemed like this could be an outrageous spectacle.

And it was not.

Well, it was a spectacle.  There were some forty people on stage over the course of the night.  Not even all of them were musicians.  There were people ringing in the stage (one woman had her purse with her) who I’m guessing were VIPs or who won a contest or something.  When the band first came out there were four horn players, two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, a disembodied voice (eventually I located him), four backing vocalists and George himself.

These musicians came and went throughout the show, sometimes being replaced by others.  And who even knew what was going on in the back where people were unseeable. (more…)

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Fishbone (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, August 19, 2023) [PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC]

Posted in Blue Eye Extinction, Fishbone, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Montclair, NJ, Parliament, Wellmont Theater on August 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 19, 2023] Fishbone

I first heard of Fishbone from John Cusack wearing a Fishbone shirt in Say Anything (1989).

And it wasn’t just a random T-shirt

[Cusack didn’t like the boom-box scene].  In a last-ditch effort to convince his star to try the scene the way it was written, Crowe told Cusack that the song blaring from the stereo would be by the band Fishbone. At the time, the actor was a big fan of the ska group, and their music’s inclusion helped persuade him to give it a try. The shot worked, but the scene was still a long way from reaching its legendary form.

(While sources all agree that a Fishbone song was played from the boombox on-set, which song was used seems up for debate. AFI claims it was “Question of Life, Mental Floss says it was “Turn the Other Way” and Uproxx believes it to have been ”Bonin’ in the Boneyard.” For the sake of argument, we’ll trust Crowe, who said that “Party at Ground Zero” was the song used.)

Anyhow, I liked the logo and decided to check out the band (or at least that’s how I remember it).  I loved their first EP with it’s funky dancey, naughty songs.  And Truth and Soul followed to great success.  Then it was their terrific The Reality of My Surroundings which sold me for good on Fishbone.  They even had a pretty big hit with the very heavy “Swim” from the following album.  So I’d been following Fishbone for about five years and hen kind of lost touch with them.

But those albums received a ton of play in those years and I never forgot how much I loved them.

So when I saw that they were still together (or reunited or whatever) I was surprised and delighted.  There’s been a ton of lineup shuffling over the years, but as of this concert, four of the six original members are now back (or still) in the band. (more…)

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Pixies / Modest Mouse / Cat Power (The Stone Pony Summer Stage, Asbury Park, NJ, August 20, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Asbury Park, NJ, Cat Power, Modest Mouse, Pixies, The Stone Pony, The Stone Pony Summer Stage on August 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: August 20, 2023] Pixies / Modest Mouse / Cat Power

I saw Pixies for the first time in 28 years at The Stone Pony Summer Stage and it was glorious.  I’ve since seen them two more times and I don’t feel the need to ever see them again.  Even though each show has been very good, and there is some mixing up of songs, I feel like I’ve seen everything they’re going to show me.

I would see Modest Mouse every time they came around.  The shows are totally different and each one feels like a new version of the band.

I have never really liked Cat Power (blasphemy!).  She just doesn’t do anything for me.

With this line up, the nays overrode the yeas.

Recently I looked to see how much the tickets were, just in case I wanted to go and I found out it was sold out.  So good for all of them.

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Blu Eye Extinction (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, August 19, 2023) [PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC]

Posted in Blue Eye Extinction, Fishbone, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Montclair, NJ, Parliament, Wellmont Theater on August 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 19, 2023] Blu Eye Extinction

I had been looking forward to this show quite a lot.  I’ve loved Fishbone for years and I assumed that PFunk would be a lot of fun.

At the last minute I found out that there was going to be a third band, Blu Eye Extinction opening as well.  I was pretty tired going in so this wasn’t welcome news.

I walked in as they were playing and I rather liked their sound–a rock/funk/rap experience.  Off t the side of the stage was a woman playing keys and singing backing vocals.  But he singing style was… different.  Kind of operatic and not exactly related to the melody.  It was a puzzle for sure.  So I looked them up and found this

Blu Eye Extinction is a NYC-based funk fusion band.  The brainchild of Isotopia Records’ Constance Hauman who brings an unlikely combination of opera, jazz and funk to her keyboards and vocals, is only possible with the funk foundation and masterful grooves of the electric bass of James Jones. His unique style also encompasses his vocals, supporting Henry Ott’s rock guitars…  If that isn’t enough, you add front man and emcee TJ Robinson on trombone, percussion and rap vocals, supported by JS Williams‘s rich trumpet w/ R&B vocals, and last but so not the least, Joshua Keitt’s metal-rock funk drums, it is no wonder that audience’s minds have been blown on the 50 UK and US shows since their debut at New Orleans Jazzfest April 29, 2022.

(more…)

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The War on Drugs / Shakey Graves / Lucius / Steve Gunn (The Stone Pony Summer Stage, Asbury Park, NJ, August 18, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Asbury Park, NJ, Lucius, Shakey Graves, Steve Gunn, The Head and the Heart, The Revivalists, The Stone Pony, The Stone Pony Summer Stage, The War on Drugs on August 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: August 18, 2023] The War on Drugs / Shakey Graves / Lucius / Steve Gunn

My wife and I saw The War on Drugs as our first show after the pandemic.  And it was wonderful. We were seated in a terrible seats at The Met, but the show was chill and mellow and we sat far away and the music swept over us.

I wasn’t sure if we’d want to go to this show, though because Stone Pony Summer Stage is a questionable proposition.  It’s a lovely venue but depending on the crowd, it can be terrible.  Plus, I know that standing around for four bands can be exhausting.  Especially since I wanted to see Lucius, but not necessarily Shakey Graves.

Steve Gunn is a musician who I thought I didn’t know, but I have seen a Tiny Desk of his.  He plays a kind of slow acoustic guitar with an eastern-style drone. It’s slow and addictive but I don’t think I’d want to stand to hear it.

Lucius is a band that I’d like to see live but somehow keep missing, as they play every stage that I’m not going to.

Shakey Graves and Lucius were both at the Guster festival this past weekend.  Which is kind of crazy.  I had said that I didn’t want to see Shakey Graves, but when I re-read my thoughts about his Newport Folk performance from a few years ago, I remembered that I thought he’d be fun to see live–he’s great at getting the crowd psyched up.

But, honestly, we were happy to stay home on a Friday night.

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Margaret Glaspy: Free at Noon (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA, August 18, 2023)

Posted in Free at Noon, Margaret Glaspy, Philadelphia, PA, World Cafe Live on August 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 18, 2023] Margaret Glaspy

I had been wanting to see Margaret Glaspy for a pretty long time.  She last played Philadelphia in 2016, about two months before I heard her album.  (Well, actually, she played Philly when opening for Ruston Kelly, ew).  She was supposed to headline a tour back in 2020, but that show was postponed, so it’s not her fault that it took six years for me to see her.

It also takes her a pretty long time to put out new music.  Her new album is only her third in seven years.  She had been working on these songs for a while because she played a bunch of them when opening for Spoon last year.

She announced a new tour and is playing Underground Arts the same night I have a ticket for Explosions in the Sky. I’m still torn–they’re very different shows.  But then WXPN announced she’d be doing a Free at Noon and I grabbed a ticket.  I’ve often thought it’s not worth doing one of these–I mean it’s about three hours of my ay for a 30 minute show.  But this one was especially fun because her album came out today and she signed them.

And the band sounded great!

I love how loud and brash her guitar sounds.  I tend to think of her as a kind of soft-spoken singer, but her guitars really rock.   Her new single “Act Natural” is so damned catchy with a great riff and a fun chorus.  Like last time she opened with “I Didn’t Think So” and “Act Natural.”  They are a great one-two punch of riffs and melody.  (more…)

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Otherworld Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA, August 17, 2023)

Posted in Otherworld, Philadelphia, PA on August 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 17, 2023] Otherworld Philadelphia

I had gotten an ad on Instagram for something called Otherworld.  There was very little information about what it was, but it seemed like an immersive interactive art exhibit.  My kids have both been to Meow Wolf in Denver and I imagined it would be something like that: Rooms where you looked at things and touched things and just marveled at everything around you.

Even some of the proper reviews of the place were deliberately vague.  This was pretty much everything from ABC 6 News online:

“Otherworld” features more than 55 rooms and large-scale installations. Guests of all ages can roam at their own pace through the 40,000-square-foot location. More than 100 artists are working on the project.

So I purchased early bird tickets at a reduced rate and took the day off work and we headed into Philly (there’s AMPLE parking!!!)

We walked in and my first thought was (having just been to a Flaming Lips concert) that this building must be what the inside of Wayne Coyne’s head is like.

It was fantastic. (more…)

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